Punch Buggy redux

Singapore is such a small, small place. Just about a week and a half ago, I found a long lost friend through Max, the media planner in the agency that was doing stuff for us. The first time we met, I found his persona strangely familiar, like one of those things you seem to remember from a dream you had the night before. It was only after taking a second glance at his namecard that I realised he shared the same family name as a friend whom I'd long forgotten.

I took a stab in the dark and asked Max if he had a younger brother named Melvin and, true enough, he said yes. Max immediately gave his younger brother a call and there we were, Melvin and I, trying to catch up on what had gone on in the past 12 years since we last met.

In 1993, Melvin and I found each other through the free ad postings in the now defunct BigO magazine. He plays the guitar and was looking for members to form a band; I was just starting to play the drums and was looking for a band to really jam with. So, voila, Punch Buggy was formed.

We had the same kind of musical tastes which were, at that time, mainly made up of jangly stuff like Teenage Fanclub, Weezer, The Posies, Lemonheads and the like. We were also skating buddies who would go everywhere on our skateboards - jamming, skating to his place from Sunset Way (they used to reside at a condo called Bradley Ville or some fancy name like that opposite Clementi Park condo). Somehow after I graduated and Melvin found his niche with another local band (Silverspy which then evolved into Suchness) and we lost contact.

Upon catching up, I realised that we still have more in common than I thought. We both wear skating shoes to work (despite being frowned upon by our bosses), we love buying Bata shoes and (this one takes the cake) both of us relish the sound of this band called Silver Sun because we are of the same accord that our band then would have sounded like this had we continued to master our craft.

Anyways, it turns out Melvin still writes songs and is a bedroom musician now. Not that he wasn't back then; we used to fool around with a 4-track machine which recorded on a cassette. Which in turn is unheard of anymore. He's turned one of the rooms at his (parents') place into a jamming studio so we're getting together this weekend for a little jam session.

Can't wait.

Terminator Salvation

The past few months have been like a fanboy's wet dream come true. It started with Iron Man, then The Incredile Hulk, Hellboy 2 and now the hype with The Dark Knight. Being a fanboy myself, I can't say that I wasn't jumping with gleeful joy at the thought of all these wonderful works of pulp fiction being transposed onto the big screen to be fleshed out in their full glory.

Speaking of Batman, the next movie in line that is making the palms of all fanboys (myself included) sweat is the highly anticipated (aren't they all??) Terminator 4, which coincidentally stars Christian Bale again as John Connor, the much burdened leader of the resistance. I'm really glad that they decided to leave Arnie out of this whole deal! Unlike the Rambo franchise, which rocked big time despite an ageing Sly Stallone (I'm sure they made a deliberate effort NOT to cover up his wrinkles and bulging belly!) the Terminator series isn't all about a T-800 wlaking around in a leather jacket armed to his teeth with firearms and blasting everything in his way, all the while mouthing cheesy one liners.

Check out the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXnELk6pZVk

The battle with Skynet begins...

Last day at work

Today marked the last day of my journey at YHS. Time has zipped by really quickly due to the tons of work that seemed to be always piling up, especially in the last 2 months when I took over the work of another colleague who left, despite my best efforts to get everything sorted out. The phrase ‘so much work but too little time’ seemed to take on a literal meaning for me. It was only logical then that I had slowly begun to doubt my own work efficiency.

It seemed like yesterday that I stepped into the company premises reporting for my first day of work (still recall my VP telling to remove my tie – apparently, to my relief, it wasn’t the culture here for guys to put on ties!). I was all revved up to get going, eager to prove myself. Over the next couple of months, I must say I definitely did. Time and again, there was always something waiting to blow up in my face. But by the grace and mercy of God, things always seemed to work out fine in the end despite me breaking out into a cold sweat at the beginning.

It’s a peculiar feeling when you wake up in the morning knowing that it’s your last day at work. Like people on their deathbed, you know that today would be the last chance for you to right the wrongs that you’ve always wanted to but never had the opportunity. Like these dying folks worrying about leaving out something in their will, I likewise pondered about the things I had to hand over, worrying that I may have omitted some little detail in my handover list that would snowball into something huge.

I (finally) sorted all my documents into proper files, having to hand them over to Desmond (my colleague who’s taking over me). And after so many months, I finally cleared tons of junk that served no purpose other than to clutter my already limited cubicle space (I seem to be removing a lot of clutter in my life lately). My cubicle was finally clear and I was so proud of myself!

Leaving the office at 9.30pm, I was actually quite sad. While this job has given me many sleepless nights, I am going to miss all my colleagues who had grown to become friends over the 10 months I was here. A wise man (can’t remember who) once said ‘The only certain thing in life is change and progress’. I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Adios, amigos…

Guitar lessons

I've finally gotten down to starting guitar lessons. For over 15 years of my life, I never had the patience to sit my ass down long enough to actually learn how to play the guitar. Always had the desire to learn though, as all the guitarists in the band always seem to get the chicks (see Richie Sambora from Bon Jovi, Dave Navarro from Red Hot Chili Peppers, among the many). Guess it was a case of 'mind is willing but the body is weak'.

I used to play a bit of bass, which was much easier. It was just press with one finger on the left hand and pluck with one on the right. Bed of roses considering the fact that the songs (mainly punk ditties from the Ramones) I played back in those days consisted only of three or four chords at most. Which also explains why I picked up the drums then cos I'm impatient that way. Just sit and whack and you get results!

With the guitar, it's a little different. You have to contort the fingers on your left hand to unimaginable positions and strum with the right hand. And you have to get the strumming right as the upwards and downwards strumming movements will give you different sounds, blah, blah.

Today, my motivations to pursue the guitar has drifted from impressing bevies of young chicks to a desire to praise and worship an awesome God. I found this young chap over the internet who teaches both the acoustic and electric guitar. Great for me since I don't reckon I would want to torture myself by learning the acoustic, then the electric. So far I've only learned four chords and played one song (Brian McKnight's One).

Not too bad for an hour. Now, I just need another gazillion hours of practise and more chords to start rocking the house.

Hail, hail rock n roll!

Removing clutter

We've had it with our wardrobe. After being so badly warped and as a result wreaking havoc on the rollers (this one came with sliding doors), we finally decided to replace it before the doors fell off and hit one of us while we were asleep (some of the brackets holding the shelves had already given way due to the intense warping of the sides).

So Penny and I removed all the stuff from the old wardrobe and, boy, was it a tiring job! I never knew I had so much junk accumulated over the years - old notes and newspaper articles from my Adv Dip days, comics, prayer beads (used to be a Soka member), old DVDs and games, G.I. Joes in little Ziploc bags and more toys that were long forgotten (a Star Wars Snowspeeder complete with two Rebel Alliance pilots!).

We ended up with 4 large garbage bags of trash (our wardrobe could really gooble a lot of junk!) and we still had things that we wanted enough to clog up our room, the living room and parts of the kitchen! What can I say, we're sentimental people.

After that, we had to take the old monster apart, which was the fun part. How often do you get to rip something apart with your bare hands? We had to remove the old wardrobe and clean up the whole area before the new wardrobe arrived. You can never imagine the amount of dust that can accumulate in 10 years.

Obviously, we were both dead tired after that. But that was not the end. We had to wait for the new wardrobe to arrive and move back all the stuff that we wanted!

Becoming an ah chek part 3

As if the Goldlion shirt and white hair weren't enough, my knees have started to hurt of late. Penny keeps nagging at me to stop jogging but I still maintain the stance that I need to train for my yearly IPPT and starting to run a month before is just a big no-no. Even more so now with all the sudden deaths during 2.4km runs.

Anyway, so I couldn't take it anymore and bought myself a knee brace. It got so bad one day that I had so much problem stepping on my clutch while driving. And to top it all off, I had to kay kiang and join the youths for an afternoon of basketball. Needless to say, my knees were screaming in pain along with other unimaginable parts of my lower body for about a week following that.

It sucks getting old.

Becoming an ah chek - part 2

First it was the Goldlion shirt, now I discovered another sign that is signalling my journey into 'ah chek'-hood (for lack of a better word).

White hair.

Penny had quite a ball plucking them out for me. Now when I look at myself in the mirror, I no longer look out for pimples. Maybe it's the stress getting to me, or perhaps really it's age catching up. Regardless, I can't deny the fact that they'll continue to populate my once wonderful crown of nice, black (albeit a little dry) hair. Hopefully I'll end up with a cool pepperish shade like George Clooney.

Now all I have to do is try my best to imitate that irritating smirk.